How NeighborWorks Organizations Have Responded to the Racially Disparate Impact of COVID-19 in Black

Black American communities have faced many disparate negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including higher rates of infection and pandemic-induced job loss. Given the history of community development organizations in responding to spatial and economic racial inequities, the role of these organizations in responding to the pandemic, and the greater attention given to anti-Black racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, this paper seeks to document and examine how organizations within the NeighborWorks® America network are responding to the disparate racial impacts of the pandemic. To do so, it poses two central questions: How are community development organizations that are based in predominantly Black communities pursuing racial equity in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic? And how has the confluence of national conversations around racism and police brutality along with the pandemic allowed organizations to advocate for a more racially equitable recovery moving forward?